which will -- it will be interesting to see if that's how the republican leader, mitch mcconnell, who is the key here, does he sign off on a deal. if he signs off on a deal, something will happen. does he read that and say, boy, we need to take this tax issue off the table. he is a big believer of this. give the president his tax hike on the rich now. fight him on everything else when taxes aren't part of the conversation. fight him on everything else in six weeks when the debt ceiling is hit or eight weeks, 12 weeks, whenever that fight happens, and do that. i do think that mcconnell -- that's where he wants to be. can he get there in the next 24 hours? that's what we don't know. >> tom brokaw? >> well, it seems to me that the middle class is going to have a date for the prom. everybody is talking about protecting the middle class here. so i think this deal will probably get done around the middle class tax cut. it's at what level. $400,000 or $250,000 or some other number. which is going to be critically important. a lot of people don't realize in a large urban and suburban areas of